Monday, March 21, 2011

What's With All the Bad Dads of Pokémon?

WARNING! SPOILERS! This post contains spoilers regarding the latest Pokémon games, Pokémon Black and Pokémon White. View at your own risk, or try not to look for that matter, if you want to play the games and find out for yourself what happens.First there was Greevil from Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness and his two sons, Ardos and Eldes. Then there was Giovanni and his son, revealed to be the red-haired rival from Pokémon HeartGold and Pokémon SoulSilver. And now... there's Ghetsis, one of the Seven Sages of Team Plasma, and his son, N, whom he crowned king as part of his master plan. Let's review, shall we?Greevil was the Grand Master of the evil syndicate Cipher, whose reign of terror spread across the land of Orre with vicious Shadow Pokémon at their disposal. After his defeat at the hands of the player, Eldes ultimately convinces his father to realize their wrongdoings and turn themselves in to the authorities. Ardos, however, kept his heart stained and left forever without a trace.

Giovanni, as we all know, is the current leader of Team Rocket, the most well known organization of malevolence with a reputation of stealing Pokémon for profit and for use in their evil schemes. At first, Giovanni suffered his ultimate defeat at the hands of player in Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue as Gym Leader of Viridian City and decided to leave for more training before returning to his team. In HeartGold and SoulSilver, the player learns that his/her rival had a talk with Giovanni moments before he left for his solitude. In the original Japanese version, it is stated that the rival is in fact Giovanni's son, as hinted in both versions of Pokémon FireRed and Pokémon LeafGreen.

Now, in Pokémon Black and Pokémon White, it is revealed at the end of the first story mode that Ghetsis of Team Plasma is in fact N's father who only made his green-haired son king of Team Plasma to execute their plan. Ghetsis was only using his son and had secretly kept Pokémon of his own so that when everyone else all across Unova would forcefully release their Pokémon, he would he the only person left in the region with Pokémon, thus allowing him to easily reign supreme. This is revealed to the player moments before he/she is challenged in a final showdown to determine the fate of the land.

So, we gotta ask ourselves... what's with all these bad dads of Pokémon? What kind of examples are they setting for their sons? Well, actually, there have been instances of breaking away in all three cases. Eldes saw the error of Cipher's ways and managed to convince Greevil to think the same. Giovanni's son turned against him right when he learned what he planned to do, so he was generally never on Team Rocket's side, thus not learning from his father's heinous ways one bit. And N decided that while he would continue to spread his beliefs regarding Pokémon, he would not force others to do his bidding, but rather let them think for themselves.